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Heralding Deal with China, Philippines Restarts Offshore Oil-Gas Exploration
in Disputed Sea

Ralph Jennings

   TAIPEI, TAIWAN - The Philippine government's lifting of a ban on
   offshore oil and gas exploration reopens the door to joint energy
   development with China, the erstwhile biggest player in a regional
   maritime sovereignty dispute, analysts believe.

   Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has approved a Department of
   Energy proposal to resume exploration in the South China Sea, the
   department said October 15 in a statement online. Exploration was
   called off six years ago as a Sino-Philippine maritime dispute peaked.

   Resumption of oil and gas exploration will "infuse the economy with
   fresh foreign direct investments," Energy Secretary Alfonso Cusi said
   in the statement.

   China stands to become the key foreign investor despite irritating the
   Philippines and five other governments with its maritime expansion
   since 2010, analysts say. They chafed particularly after officials in
   Beijing authorized the landfilling of tiny islets, in some cases for
   military use. China claims about 90% of the sea, including tracts that
   the Philippines say come under its exclusive economic zone.

   Two years ago this month, China and the Philippines signed a memorandum
   of understanding to look together for undersea oil and gas, a way of
   defusing their corner of the broader regional dispute. The
   Sino-Philippine dispute culminated in 2016 with a Philippine world
   arbitration court victory. China snubbed the ruling, but that same year
   Duterte moved to make friends with counterparts in Beijing and tap it
   for economic aid.

   "Early on, the [Duterte] administration entered into memoranda of
   understanding with China, and that included joint development, or at
   least the promise of joint development, as far as the West Philippine
   Sea is actually concerned. So this might simply be moving forward on
   those MOUs, especially since the Duterte administration is winding
   down," said Herman Kraft, political science professor at University of
   the Philippines Diliman.

   The West Philippine Sea is Manila's term for the South China Sea.

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